24 hours to Marriage
by Deathofme
Summary: Oneshot. Hour by hour account leading up to a wedding, through Calleigh's eyes. not as fluffy as it seems HC


**A/N **With the approaching wedding coming up on Miami, I decided I needed to do one in my own style. And also, it gave me a great idea for another 24 hour shot. This is fluffy, but if you know my fics, then you'll know there's a killer of a twist ending. So please leave a review and enjoy!

Man, I _love _dream sequences!

* * *

24 hours to Marriage

Calleigh looked at herself in the mirror.

She saw a woman staring back at her. And though she had never questioned her identity or who she was before, she found herself wondering who she was now. Who was this face staring back at her? Who had she been, who was she meant to be?

_I'm Calleigh Duquesne._

Really? And not Calleigh Dawson or little baby Calleigh or her daddy's little princess, or that _stubborn_ girl…

_Duquesne. It's Duquesne._

The name she had chosen for herself. The person she had chosen she wanted to be.

Calleigh smiles at herself in the mirror, satisfied. It's no time to be mooning at herself and wondering about life now, it was time to get on with the show. She hurriedly applied some light eyeliner, a smear of lippy and then walked out of her house. Her head held high, because she knew who she was, and that would just have to be enough to get her through.

* * *

22 hours before Marriage

Calleigh stands still and holds her arms out like a crucifix. The seamstress pins more fabric and then makes her quick alterations. The dress was finished, but the seamstress called her in for last minute touches.

"You have such a gorgeous figure it would be a pity to not let it show."

Calleigh thanked her prettily, she was a Southern woman and if anything the woman down South held their heads up high with fierce pride and always made sure they had their best appearance on. So Calleigh knew when to take compliments, be courteous (for the South invented manners) and pass it off casually without appearing flippant.

The dress was quite beautiful, and Calleigh did like pretty things. She liked them a little differently than most women, she wasn't frivolous about them, and didn't think them so important, but she could appreciate them all the same. She was femininity to its core, unashamedly girly, without compromising any of her strength.

It was a trait she hoped Horatio would find in his bride.

_Guns are pretty too._

And she giggles as she realizes she truly does think about guns all the time. It's welcome relief from the huge overhanging shadow of the wedding that has consumed so much of her mind for the past couple weeks.

_They have a simple poetry to them, a deadly elegance, our machines of war._

"There now, don't you look stunning?"

Calleigh looks at herself in the mirror, a firearm in her own right.

* * *

20 hours until Marriage

Horatio and Calleigh share an amused, significant look across the table. They've known each other long enough to be able to communicate silently. She has a little more trouble concealing her mirth, but he looks just as tickled.

It's the dinner party before the wedding, meant for the bride and bridesmaids, but Horatio and Eric have tagged along too.

"Oh yes I _know, _what were they thinking when they picked orange?"

"Isn't orange the new pink?"

"Nothing will be the new pink."

"I mean those dresses were just hideous."

Calleigh's injections into the conversation are lighthearted, but hold a dry, barbed wit few of the women pick up on at the table, but cause the corner of Horatio's mouth to curl deeper and deeper with amusement. She finally gestures with her head, signaling an exit and he follows close behind.

"So it's the big day tomorrow, isn't it handsome?"

"Yes…yes I suppose it is."

He's beaming, she's never seen him so happy before and it makes her heart sing as well, simultaneously as it breaks. Her heart always breaks a little when she sees him.

Horatio looks significantly towards the inside of the restaurant, from their position out in the garden.

"Having a stimulating conversation in there Calleigh?"

"Horatio."

She laughs, rolling her eyes. He smiles, retracting into his own thoughts when he looks at her and pulls her into an uncharacteristic hug.

"I'm glad, you'll be there with me…tomorrow…"

He whispers in her ear, his voice affectionate, and urgent for her to hear. She nods against his shoulder and squeezes his back lightly.

"It's a real honor, a dream come true Horatio."

* * *

16 hours until Marriage

Calleigh sleeps alone in her big, solitary bed.

She feels it silly of herself now, but as she lies under the covers, in the dark with nothing but the thoughts running through her head, she feels something very cold in the pit of her stomach.

_It's just jitters. Stupid jitters._

But she knows it has to be more than that, it _is_ more than that. In the darkness she can recount all the pain she went through when it came to this man, and a feeling of dread washes over her.

She promised herself she had forgotten and forgiven all of it. She had promised herself that she had no right to feel this way, to be so silly about it. She had promised herself she wouldn't grow weak and that she'd be able to let it all go.

But now in the darkness everything suddenly becomes too daunting and she finds herself crying, to her surprise, crying herself to sleep.

* * *

10 hours until Marriage

Calleigh dreams.

Calleigh dreams she's wearing a white dress with a long train. The train stretches out so far she cannot see its end. The dress is shiny, and she realizes it's plated metal. It has scratches and striations all over it.

She has a veil on her head but its sticky and she wipes at it to see it's red. She hears a woman scream.

She looks and sees Horatio, standing under an archway, bathed in light. She walks up to him and feels her heart thud so strongly she feels like her head's going to explode and the air pressure in her ears will pop her eardrums. He turns to look at her and there's a candle in his hand, the wax dribbling onto his fingers.

She runs up to kiss him, but it seems no matter how hard she tries, she kisses thin air. She looks to her left and sees Eric standing there, in a formal suit. He leans against the archway, nonchalantly looking at his fingernails.

"It is forbidden Calleigh."

He looks at her now, with those impossibly full lips of his.

"It is forbidden Calleigh."

_Why?_

She desperately looks at Horatio again and realizes she has a gun in her hand, her dress a gun, in her hand. The gun fires and it explodes in a violent spattering of sparks and bullets and she sees every one hit Horatio and he collapses to the ground.

Calleigh hears a woman scream and then wakes up. She groans, wipes her forehead with sweat, tells herself she's being silly and nervous and that love makes us fools and goes back to sleep.

* * *

8 hours until Marriage

Calleigh wakes up with bleary eyes. She needs to shower, her eyes are red and puffy from her uncomfortable night but she doesn't find the strength to go in just yet. It's still very early in the morning. She makes herself a cup of coffee and waits for her body to wake up.

She's supposed to go over to Eric's house in a couple hours and they would drive over to the wedding together. She has to be there early. She has so many things to do. So many things to worry about.

And she sits at the table, cup of coffee in hand and finds she doesn't have the strength to get up or think of any of it at all.

* * *

4 hours until Marriage

Calleigh had eaten breakfast with Eric and he was now driving them to the wedding hall. She would change there, have a couple hours for primping and fretting and waiting, and then the ceremony. She was feeling much better and much more alive. The heady feeling of adrenaline, and endorphins was starting to creep back into her system and she was more of her perky self.

Eric was driving quietly behind the wheel, they were having small talk, but the silences were easy too, they were friends and comfortable in each other's company. There was a lapse in the conversation and Eric was a little cautious when he said this.

"So…how do you feel about the whole wedding thing?"

"Hmmm?"

She didn't understand what answer he wanted from her. He laughed a little embarrassedly.

"I mean, are you nervous at all? Any panic attacks or has it been smooth sailing the whole way through?"

He quickly looks at her, tearing his eyes from the road, and she thinks. She needs to give him a truthful answer, he's concerned about her, and wants to make sure things are alright.

"I'm nervous Eric. But, I think it's inevitable to be nervous."

Eric gives her a comforting smile.

"Okay Calleigh, okay."

The moment shared between them hangs in the air, and throughout the rest of the day she finds it precious and heartening.

* * *

2 hours until Marriage

Calleigh looks at herself in the mirror.

She's in her dress, in the bridal chambers, looking at herself in the mirror.

People have passed by, bustling in and out, telling her how beautiful she looks, talking about how excited they are about the wedding, saying how it's finally time Horatio tied the knot, and then bustling out again.

It's in the private moments in between that she truly sees herself in the mirror.

Her face is grave, too grave for a wedding and she reaches for her brushes and sponges and pots of makeup. She rarely puts much on, but today is a special day. A day you paint your smile in red gloss and smile prettily for the camera. The special day you make good memories for when you're too old to remember how events truly played themselves out.

Maudlin thoughts for a wedding, Calleigh thinks and she proceeds to apply her makeup. I should be cheerful.

She tries a smile into the mirror, and her lips are beautiful enough to detract away from the subtly sad form they take.

Marriage

Calleigh stands up, listening to the priest, seeing Horatio's face. How gentle it is, how deliriously happy it is. She smiles in spite of herself.

There are familiar faces in the crowd, and Eric and Alexx and the rest of the lab are nearby in the front row that she can see them, and share a secret look with them. They keep her standing up there, strong.

"I take you Horatio Caine to be my lawfully wedded husband…"

Calleigh hears the vows in her head, running through like a subscript and inside her heart dies a little. It is finally done. The moment she has agonized over has finally passed.

The breeze tickles her hair. The sun beats down on her, the wedding is held on outdoor grounds.

"I take you…"

Overcome with emotion she only barely snaps back to reality to hear the "I do's" and watch Horatio place a gold band on Marisol Delko's hand.

"_It is forbidden Calleigh"_

And it is. And so it is.

And so Calleigh stands there, and she looks at the man she loves smile and walk away with another woman. And she thinks about who she is. She likes pretty things and she thinks guns are pretty. But she likes to be practical as well, and adores the smell of gunsmoke and the satisfying bang they make. She loves Horatio Caine, and she loves him enough to keep herself from tearing him away from the woman he adores.

Calleigh thinks. She's unashamedly girly, and uncompromisingly strong. She isn't afraid of veneers or not showing who she is, no matter how the different facets of herself contradict each other. She holds her head with fierce pride.

_I'm Calleigh Duquesne._

And her life isn't dictated by wanton chains of emotion to a forbidden man.

_So there._

She is a woman who is finally at peace with herself.

_The name is Duquesne. So there._

And then Calleigh smiles and cheers and whoops with the rest of them as Horatio and Marisol walk down the aisle, and she genuinely feels happiness and that _finally_, something, when it comes to this particular man, something has finally gone right.

* * *

END 


End file.
